Our situation may in some measure account for this extreme variation of temperature, as we were in the bed of the creek which might yet have been damp, as its surface had only just dried up; perhaps also from exposure to such heat during the day we were more susceptible of the least change.
Be that as it may, certain it is that as morning dawned on this occasion, when the thermometer stood at 67 degrees, we crept nearer to our fires for warmth, and in less than six hours afterwards were in a temperature of 104 degrees.
As we passed through the acacia scrub, we observed that the natives had lately been engaged collecting the seed.

The boughs of the trees were all broken down, and there were numerous places where they had thrashed out the seed, and heaped up the pods.

These poor people must indeed be driven to extremity if forced to subsist on such food, as its taste is so disagreeable that one would hardly think their palates could ever be reconciled to it.

Natives had evidently been in our neighbourhood very lately, but we saw none.
At this time I was exceedingly anxious both about Mr.Poole and Mr.
Browne, who were neither of them well.

The former particularly complained of great pain, and I regretted to observe that he was by no means strong.
About 10 o'clock on the morning of the last day of the year 1844, I was with Tampawang at the head of the lagoon, trying to capture one of the building rats, a nest of which we had found under a polygonum bush.